Blue Boats in Essaouira

Having chilled out for a while our group reassembled to begin a sunset photography workshop and an opportunity to see the blue fishing boats for which Essaouira is well known. You can see from the main photo in this footprint the option of sunset photography was no option at all - it was cloudy. You'd think we were in Britain.

We wandered down to the port in any case and found a myriad of blue boats huddled, or more accurately squashed, together which meant finding a good composition for a photo was quite hard. We stayed here for a while but then Katrina said we must leave, which perplexed a few of the group because everything seemed fine - but it wasn't. As we walked away an argument broke out between some of the Moroccon fishermen then, as we looked back, people were shouting at each other and quite a large group on their blue boats were pushing and shoving each other and shouting in a very intimidating way. Katrina was right, we did need to leave.

So we headed to the beach area to find photographic opportunities there and stayed until it was almost dark. Some of the group concentrated on beach parasol silhouettes, me included, and others photographed reflections across the beach. I wish I'd done that in the end because I felt I wasted too much time trying get get an image that wasn't really worth it. C'est la vie!

We finished the evening with a meal together then went our separate ways to our various hotels. Tomorrow we start our journey across Morocco and towards the Sahara desert so, for me, the most interesting part of the trip is about to begin.Read more